


Lithium

by luna_dd



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, My First Work in This Fandom, Psychotropic Drugs, Set during season 4, i did not read manga yet, tagging is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27957317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna_dd/pseuds/luna_dd
Summary: After his grandfather’s death Tobio became… detached. That’s how he thought about it, he just took a step back from the reality, protecting himself from the pain that came with the loss. His mother called it fading, his therapist called it a depressive episode and prescribed himsomething(Tobio wasn’t keen on remembering the names, they were complicated and meant nothing.)
Kudos: 20





	Lithium

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine how surprised I was when yesterday my brain decided to serve me an idea for haikyuu fic. An idea I was actually able to execute

Kageyama Tobio was on medication. He probably wasn’t the only person on the team to be prescribed  _ something _ but he was ninety-nine point nine percent sure he was the only taking psychotropic medication on a daily basis. Due to doctor’s advice.

It wasn’t something he was proud of, it wasn’t something he was ashamed of either, it was a fact that he didn’t like to think about too much or talk at all.

After his grandfather’s death Tobio became… detached. That’s how he thought about it, he just took a step back from the reality, protecting himself from the pain that came with the loss. His mother called it fading, his therapist called it a depressive episode and prescribed him  _ something _ (Tobio wasn’t keen on remembering the names, they were complicated and meant nothing.) 

Back then he took them for a few months and then stopped. They did nothing, or so he thought, so why bother? It took a few missed classes, two failed tests and one, just one fight with a kid from the volleyball team for the teachers to contact his mother. 

She was mad, she refused to talk to him the entire car ride but when they got home, the second the doors closed behind them, she started yelling.

Tobio curled into a tiny ball, right there in genkan, still wearing his coat and sneakers and started crying. It made her stop but it also made her ask many questions. So he told her, between sobs and hiccups, that he stopped taking the pills and that it was hard. He couldn’t tell her what was hard because he didn’t know it yet. Everything seemed hard to him but that just couldn’t be right. It’s not possible for  _ everything  _ to be hard, for everything to be dull, for everything to be so meaningless. 

One doctor’s appointment later he was prescribed new meds and his mother was dialing the number to the psychiatry clinic to schedule his weekly meetings with a therapist. 

He didn’t want to take the pills but the doctor said that they would make him feel better, that they would help him enjoy things again. He was still detached, but at least one step closer to the reality. He could function, it was still hard but no longer unbearably so.

He hardened and focused on one thing that made him feel most alive - volleyball. He became the King he never wanted to become but that didn’t matter. As long as he was on the court he could breathe. What mattered was to win, to keep winning so that he could stand on the court as long as possible. Because that was the only place he felt he could breathe. 

When his team turned away from him h though he lost it all and he tried to commit a suicide. Because he was no longer wanted on the court, because he was alone again.

Can you call it a suicide attempt if you know that the amount of pills you take might not be enough to kill you though? He’s been struggling with it for the longest time, even now, being at highschool he wasn’t sure. His therapist told him that what matters was that day he wanted to die. Whether he would choose a foolproof method or not didn’t matter. The intent alone was enough to call it by the name. Tobio didn’t like the name, he also didn’t like that it sent him to a mental hospital for a while. He promised himself that if he was ever to try again he would do a better job at it.

Over the time his meds have been doubled, then changed, doubled again and changed again. One became two, two became three. Doses were changed and he was prescribed something else. Only this time it was  _ lithium _ . 

It was the first name he remembered, first one that meant anything. Because it was ancient _. _ Mid nineteen century ancient. It was weird to think that in the end, fancy selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors still had to bow their heads to lithium _. _

He’s been  _ fine _ on previous meds. He started highschool, joined the team, attended classes and didn't get in trouble. He even… he even made friends. They weren’t close enough to tell them about  _ any of this _ , but he learned to enjoy spending time with them, not only on the court but outside of it too. 

Still, his mother must have decided it wasn’t enough, or that his progress wasn’t fast enough. Since his attempt she’s gotten lowkey paranoid about his mental health. One bad day, one tired look on his face and she would try to reschedule his next appointment and wrap him in a blanket. It probably took her one call and a cheque for his psychiatrist to change his meds again.

So Tobio took it alongside his other medications, trying not to think too much about it. It helped.

And then he stopped.

It was at the All-Japan youth training camp. He skipped one dose because he was beat after the training, he skipped another because he didn’t want to take pill bottles with him to the cafeteria and it felt awkward to go back to the sleeping room for it, he skipped another just because. Because what if anyone asked him about a handful of pills he was supposed to take everyday? Should he lie then and tell those were vitamins?

It was just a few days but it made him feel alive. He could feel the rush of excitement where it used to be just trickle. The reality he couldn’t quite grasp after his grandfather died was once again bright and vivid. He didn’t have to  _ focus _ , he could just  _ play _ . Maybe it’s because everyone here was ridiculously good at volleyball, maybe it just channeled the game differently making him feel more. But what if it wasn’t it?

Taking various medications for months now he never noticed how numb they made him. They made him calm, they eased his anxieties and suicidal thoughts but they also killed everything else on their way. It just came gradually so he never noticed.

Taking off the train at Sendai Station, Tobio headed straight to toilets where no one could see him and rummaged through his bag to find his pills. His mum wouldn’t let it slide if she saw that he hadn't taken them so he poured the right amount out of each container and threw them loose to the side pocket of his duffel bag.

It’s Monday again, he ate breakfast with his mother, as always taking the pills after the meal, twisting his face at the taste. His mother kissed his forehead goodbye with a soft smile. Closing the front door, Tobio spat out meds he hid under his tongue and tossed them in the pocket of his bag, with the rest of them. 

At Karasuno High, seeing Hinata felt different too. Tsukishima, Yamaguchi, Sugawara, Daichi, Asahi, Nishinoya… just being around them feels different than it did a mere week ago. 

Tobio was buzzing and  _ alive. _

And yes, his hands were shaking but never when he tossed the ball. His head hurt too, so he just started carrying painkillers with himself now. The stash of untaken psychotropics grew in his bag’s side pocket. He couldn’t just throw them away, where would he do it? Certainly not at home - his mother would force him inpatient if she learned that he stopped taking them. The school was also obviously out of the question. It didn’t feel right to throw them into the trashcan on the street. Those were potentially a toxic waste. What were you supposed to do with unwanted medications anyway? So he just carried them all with himself until he could think of something.

Their first match during Nationals was what showed him what being off the medication really meant. The hall was bigger, the ceiling was higher, the proportions felt off and he couldn’t toss the ball right. Before he would probably let it slide. Because he had skills and he knew that he would eventually  _ get it right _ . But he wasn no longer numbed, there was no chemical in his bloodstream to muffle the voice telling him that he wasn’t enough, that his skills weren’t enough and that he was letting everyone down. That they would eventually bench him.

He could still ground himself and prevent the spiralling, he didn’t just sit through his therapy sessions, he worked on his issues but he’s never truly realised that with his meds the game mode has been set on ‘easy’.

They managed to win in the end, but the stimulating buzzing he felt for days was now underlined with anxiety. He hated it. 

When they got back to the hotel Tobio excused himself to go shower. He needed to clear his head and calm down. 

The hot water washed off the sense of insecurity that was creeping at him and returning to their shared room he felt better. Until he saw Hinata going through Tobio’s bag, pulling out three bottles, half filled with pills, and staring intensely at labels. No one in the room paid their spiker any attention and while, more than anything, Tobio wanted to jump forward and snatch his pills from Hinta’s tiny hands that would certainly make them a center of everyone’s attention. 

He slowly walked towards his futon, and his bag, and Hinta, but the inside of his brain was screaming. His only hope was that Hinata was an idiot and the alien sounding names would tell him nothing. 

His form casted a shadow making Hinta look up.

“Kageyama, you’re back,” he called. “Which of those are painkillers? Nishinoya’s head hurts but he said he won’t go through your things because you would kill him.” 

Hinata raised the bottles up to Kageyama’s face to make him look at them and point him to the right one. But there is no right one among them, ‘cause he placed the painkillers in a separate pocket, for easy access, while the psychotropics were supposed to stay hidden underneath all his clothes for the trip. 

He clenched his jaw and bended down, reaching to the inside pocket and gave Hinata what he had searched for. Gingerhead moved all of Tobio’s medications into his left hand, not making any move of returning them yet, and grabbed onto the painkillers with his right.

“Cool. Thanks, Kageyama!” His entire face lit up. “What are those though?” Hinta’s voice is loud, it’s always been loud, and he’s mostly used to it by now, but today Tobio wished he could just shut it.

“These are nothing. Give them back.” Hinata hid them behind his back, making it seem like a silly game.

“C’mon, you can tell me.”

“I didn’t know you’re on any medication, Kageyama?” Sawamura inquired from the other side of the room. “Is there something we should know?”

“I’m not.” Tobio tried to get his property from Hinata, who was now laying at his stomach, hugging the pill bottles up his chest.

Sugawara crawled to Kageyama’s futon and somewhat peacefully pried them from underneath Hinata. He looked at labels and threw one bottle on Nishinoya’s futon, getting a thankful groan in return. 

“Kageyama,” Sugawara started, eyeing the pills in his hand and refusing to give them back yet. “are you taking those?”

“No.”

“Then why did you bring them here? Bakageyama?” Hinata screamed but he was completely ignored by both Tobio and their senpai.

“But you  _ should be _ taking them, right?” Tobio realised that Sugawara knew. He wouldn’t be asking like that otherwise. He could only nod in reply.

“What are those?” Sawamura joined them on the futon and looked over his vice-captain’s shoulder. He furrowed his eyebrows at the names and mouthed them soundlessly. “Oh.”

“I’m fine.” Tobio tried to protest and get the meds back and shove them into his bag where they belonged but senpai stopped him.

“Come with me, Kageyama.” Sugawara asked, standing up and pulling his kouhai after him towards the exit. “You too, Daichi, as a captain.”

He took them outside. There was no good place in the hotel to have that kind of conversation, plus Koushi knew that their teammates would try to follow them and eavesdrop. But here, on the bench on the other side of the street they had no way to do it.

“How long have you been taking antidepressants?” He asked Kageyama. The younger boy looked around as if hoping for a good lie to just lay around but eventually he dropped his shoulders and sighed. 

“Since the second year of junior high.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Now it was Sawamura’s turn to ask. It was his job as a captain to make sure that all of his team members were in peak condition and somehow he completely missed Kageyama’s problem. “If you are struggling with something we could have helped you. We are a team.”

“Because there is nothing to talk about, okay.” Kageyama crossed his arms. “My doctor prescribed me those and that’s it. I’m fine.”

Both senpais exchanged looks, a silent conversation happening between them.

“Okay.” Sugawara was the one who voiced their conclusion. “As long as you are taking those and you say you are fine - we trust you, Kageyama.”

There was something in his eyes that made Tobio feel guilty, he didn’t really deserve their trust, and before he even realised he opened his mouth. “I haven’t been taking them since the training camp. They’ve been making me numb and I can focus on volleyball better now.”

He waited a few painfully long heartbeats for an answer.

“I know.” Sugawara’s smile was so sad, something twisted in Tobio’s stomach. “I know how much you love volleyball but you were prescribed these for a reason. It doesn’t matter what your diagnosis is, it’s fine for you not to share it with us, but those pills are meant to make you better.”

The weird thing is, Tobio has heard those words before. ‘They will make you better’ was a mantra that his mother used to tell him when he was still fussing at his meds at the end of junior high. But coming now from Sugawara-senpai they sounded more like a reassurance than an argument. 

He’s been playing numb for almost two years now and he was still  _ good  _ at it. Tobio wasn’t an idiot, he knew that if the feeling of anxiety came back to him, it was only a matter of time before everything else did too. Truth be told, he wanted not to care about it. He wanted to focus on the volleyball, on the sensation of the ball against his fingertips when he tossed, on the sound of the ball hitting against the wooden floor, on the smell of sweat and rubber on the gym during the match. But if there was someone caring about him he couldn’t ignore it. He didn't want to ignore it.

He took the pill bottles from Sugawara’s hands and opened two of them, taking one pill from each and swallowed them dry. Third one,  _ lithium, _ he raised up to Sugawara’s line of sight.

“There is no way I’m taking this without water. It tastes like dead fish.”

  


**Author's Note:**

> take your meds, kids


End file.
